And yes, there will be a puppet!

FROM THE DEXCON WEBSITE: 

L0048″Bulldogs! LARP” by Galileo Games; presented by Brennan Taylor & J.R. Blackwell.

A WORLD PREMIERE EVENT! An INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED GAME: Part of the Indie Games Explosion! Come ship out with the Bulldogs! in the first-ever Bulldogs! LARP: Sci-fi that kicks ass!

Who could be desperate enough to sign his life away for five long years? Desperate enough to take a job hauling volatile and hazardous cargo to the most dangerous places in the galaxy? Planets where the very air is a corrosive acid. Planets where the locals might cut your throat just so they can turn you into a nice steak. Planets where petty thugs and warlords are engaged in constant running gun battles and you’re just as likely to catch a blaster shot in the skull as get a signed delivery manifest. You are, that’s who. Welcome to Bulldogs!

Saturday, 8:00PM – 12:00AM One Round; All Materials Provided. Beginners Welcome; Fun, All Ages.

Artist: Kurt Komoda: http://www.agonyagogo.com/portfolio/komodaillus.html

Friday

Intro to Role Playing Games. Friday, 4:00PM
Have you ever wondered how different RPG’s are from regular board and card games? Are you interested in learning more about how RPG’s work and how to join one? Come to this one and ask experts anything you want to know.

Saturday

Subverting Tropes for Fun and Profit 9AM
There are plenty of carboard cutouts and cliche character types out there that can be fleshed out with clever tweaks, and even better, some intriguing character types waiting to get kidnapped from one genre into another for new game or fiction story possibilities Joss Whedon in particular is known for mixing character types to great effect, resulting in characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. What other unusual and convention defying characters can you think up?

What Is A Good Family Game? Saturday, 5:00 PM
What important criteria should you consider when looking for a game to play as a family? It can be difficult to find a game that the whole family will understand and enjoy. Come find out what other families play together and learn about games that your family would love.

Sunday

Kickstarter: Sunday, 11:00 AM
Real life experience from creatives who have already monetized their work using Kickstarter.com or by themselves.

Using Games in Education. Sunday, 4:00 PM
How can games be used to teach concepts in the classroom? Hear from experienced educators about how they use games in their classrooms. Please bring us your own ideas to share with everyone — we’d love to hear from the audience.

Monday

In with the new – out with the old? Monday at 10:00 am
Does New Media mean ignoring more traditional methods of publishing? This session examines whether using only new media ideas is a good idea. There may be only so far one can go using the web as a publishing platform. Would it make sense the use a combination of traditional publishing methods and web-based marketing? Perhaps a hybrid approach will allow the best of both worlds.

 

Blood Red Sands is an all new role-playing game coming soon to Galileo Games. The setting is a savage and brutal world of dark sorcery, a world where the five Witch Kings of Abalahn slew the very gods and have reigned for a thousand years. Blood Red Sands is a game of competitive role-playing, where powerful heroes confront the terrible might of the Witch Kings of Abalahn. Only one hero will reach her goal. Will she throw down the Witch King, and if she does, will she take the place of the defeated tyrant on his throne? Blood Red Sands is a game for three to five players set in a brutal world of swords and sorcery. In each round, a hero is eliminated until only one remains. Will it be yours?

Blood Red Sands is written by Ralph Mazza and is currently in production with Galileo Games.

Monica is bringing back Fang, a fan favorite from Redwing’s Gambit, and she wants to know your opinion on what Fang should blow up. Go over to Monica’s blog and vote: http://www.mlvwrites.com/2012/04/we-did-it-now-vote-on-what-fang-blows-up.html

At $3,500  we promised to add a new, fourth writer to the project, and we blew past that goal with ease, allowing us to add Peter Woodworth to the team. When we reached $4,000 that same day, we were able to unleash our next reward, and commission a new piece of artwork for the cover. There are still eight hours to go in this Kickstarter, and some special rewards, including getting a special Bulldogs! flight jacket, will only be available during our Kickstarter campaign. Get in now on the action and get your copy of the anthology before anyone else does!

Our next goal is $6,000, and while it seems far on the horizon for eight hours, that goal means that we pay each of our writers a $100 bonus for their work. Galileo Games believes that artists and writer should share in the benefits of support, so if you like the writers on the project : Greg Stolze, Nathan Lowell, Eddy Webb, Gareth Skarka, Nathan Crowder, Jared Axelrod, Christiana Ellis, Mur Lafferty, Monica Valentinelli and Peter Woodworth, consider contributing to the campaign on increasing your pledge and help us support them.

Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1034531507/have-blaster-will-travel-a-bulldogs-story-antholog

If you like what you read here today, and want to read the rest of the story, you can contribute at the $8 level and receive all of the stories in the anthology in an electronic format. $20 gets you the softcover copy of the book, and higher levels of support include the hardcover book, t-shirts, patches and even a Transgalaxy flight jacket! Other writers on this project include Greg Stolze, Nathan Lowell, Eddy Webb, Gareth Skarka, Jared Axelrod, Christiana Ellis, and Mur Lafferty.

We hope you enjoy this excerpt of By Gods Damned and Bounty Blessed:

                 By Gods Damned and Bounty Blessed

                                               Nathan Crowder

Ogra wouldn’t call it love, but Myyryawl had fought fang and claw next to her for two years of her contract on the Gynn Aquatina, and in the arena that counted for something. On other planets—other ships—the two might have been rivals or even enemies. Ryjyllians such as Myyryawl were known throughout the Frontier Zone as honorable warriors, feared and respected. But Ogra was Hacragorkan, and thus regarded as little more than a space-worthy savage who just liked to fight. Even she had to admit that it was a fair assessment at the time. Yet the aging Ryjyllian engineer took Ogra under his wing when she signed on, a former pit-fighter with dreams of chasing bounties across the Frontier Zone. On a five-year loss-opt contract with Trans Galaxy, working Class-D cargo, finding someone like Myyryawl saved her life in more ways than she could name. No, it wasn’t love. But deep within her leathery green breast of the hard-as-nails bounty hunter, it was something close—something like family.

Her Ryjyllian mentor deserved a warrior’s death. With the kinds of jobs the Gynn Aquatina took, he was damn near guaranteed one, until a conman named Reeve Sklarr took that away from him.

“You must really need the money to go after a bounty this small,” Seth Eck quipped behind her. She glanced over her meaty shoulder, having momentarily forgotten the Aquatina’s newest crewmember had been sent with her. She saw him, framed between the delicate spirals of two ember-mite nests on the path behind her. The trail up from the port was thick with the things, and she made a note to be long gone before sunset and the pernicious pests woke up.

Seth seemed oblivious to the uniform structures, as if they were sculptures or natural rock formations barely up to his chin. That made him a little tall for an Arsubaran, but still a full head shorter than her, and probably half her mass. His skin was the color of an over-ripe Kulufruit, and without scar or blemish. After five missions and seven combats, Ogra had yet to see the kid fight. She scowled and turned back to the path. “Some things are more important than money.”

Under the oppressive azure sky, his reedy voice seemed to carry far too well. “The sheet said something about him selling inferior grade tech?”

Ogra knew the bounty sheet for Reeve Sklarr like it was tattooed amid the writhing black vine pattern on her left arm. It had been her highest priority search at every port the Gynn Aquatina hit since Myyryawl’s death. She could still smell the ozone and burning hair from the cybernetic eye that shorted and set her friend’s skull on fire from the inside. “Cybernetic implants, kid. He set up on the edge of war-zones and sold knock-off and inferior grade cybernetics that he installed himself—for a fat fee, of course.”

There was a pause as Seth thought it over. “I wouldn’t think there’s much call for that around these parts. I heard N’vida is a small mining operation.”

“Different angle this time,” Ogra said, her broad jaw clenched as she made out the low, flat roofs of the encampment before them. Her info said N’vida only had about a hundred people there, almost all Arsubaran. The town looked like it could handle twice that many residents at least. “I’m told Sklarr found religion.”

“Religion?” Seth stopped walking, forcing Ogra to choose between stopping or leaving him behind.

She sighed before half-turning to face him. “Apparently, he’s a messiah or something.” She tried figuring out why the sensor operator looked so conflicted by the news. His arms hung straight down at his sides, fingertips almost to the hem of the ridiculous oversized red coat he always wore, with sleeves that would have been baggy on a giant. Then she remembered. “Weren’t you with a church on that planet where we hired you?”

Seth swallowed hard. “I was…am…I am a priest.”

Well, Orga thought, maybe that explains why he’s avoided fights. Funny it hadn’t really come up before now. “And now you’re a Class-D sensor operator. That’s quite the demotion.”

“It’s a big universe. There are countless faiths. How do you know Reeve Sklarr isn’t a legitimate messiah?”

Ogra blinked, caught off guard by the question. “I guess I don’t. But his God better not get in my way, because I have a bounty to collect.” She turned and pressed on, her long stride faster now that she had her destination in sight. She’d be damned if she had to take that path with an unconscious bounty over one shoulder and ember-mites trying to get into her boots.

After a few seconds, Seth jogged after her.

Once she spent a few minutes scanning the rough homes made of scrap wood and shipping containers through her binoculars, Ogra was able to identify Sklarr’s likely hidey hole. There were only two buildings too large to be the homes of struggling miners. One flaunted wide open windows and a flickering neon sign of a bar. The other was more conservative, a simple wooden structure backed up against a low hill and with no adornment other than multi-paned windows along the side. The frugality suggested it was a church, while the expensive convertible low-altitude flyer parked nearby meant money. If Reeve Sklarr wasn’t there, Ogra was confident she’d find someone who could point the way to bounty.

She got lucky, after a sense, and found Sklarr the first place she looked. Several minutes later, while she was falling backward into darkness Ogra wondered briefly where it had all gone wrong. The answer was simple: she shouldn’t have underestimated the power of faith. More importantly, she shouldn’t have let a few dozen true believers get behind her when she was so close to the sacrificial pit. Usually, she could count on her Hacregorkan heritage and imposing physique to keep dirt farmers in line. But a mob? That was something else entirely.

And that bastard Sklarr had whipped this town full of hicks into a wide-eyed mob.

. . .To read the rest of the story, visit the Have Blaster, Will Travel Kickstarter and pledge today!

What authors would you like to see added to Have Blaster, Will Travel? Do you have a favorite sci-fi author you’d like to see write in the Bulldogs! universe? Let us know by commenting here, or on our facebook page.

Have Blaster, Will Travel Kickstarter

Our rewards include softcover copies of the anthology, t-shirts, hardcover copies, patches you can sew on to bags and the exclusive TransGalaxy flight jacket. More details about rewards and the project can be found on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1034531507/have-blaster-will-travel-a-bulldogs-story-antholog Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far, we look forward to giving you kick-ass sci-fi!

The Have Blaster, Will Travel Kickstarter has launched!

Have Blaster, Will Travel is an anthology of space opera adventure that follows the Bulldogs, people who signed on with the TransGalaxy interstellar shipping company to run away from the law, the criminals they offended, or a past that haunts them. Inspired by Firefly, Star Wars, and lots of other b-movie sci-fi, Bulldogs tells the stories of those who are desperate enough to take a job hauling volatile and hazardous cargo to the most dangerous places in the galaxy.

The fiction in this anthology will take place in the world of Bulldogs! the RPG, but you don’t have to know the game to enjoy the fiction. Anyone who likes fun space adventure will find a story to enjoy in this anthology.

The writers we’ve recruited for this project are a talented team of creators whose short fiction has already attracted fans and admirers. We are proud to have Greg Stolze, Nathan Lowell, Eddy Webb, Gareth Skarka, Nathan Crowder, Jared Axelrod, Christiana Ellis, and Mur Lafferty on the project.

Kickstarter supporters will be the first to receive the Have Blaster, Will Travel anthology, and will have access to Kickstarter-only rewards that will not be made available for general sale.

Learn more about our rewards and pledge to our Kickstarter here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1034531507/have-blaster-will-travel-a-bulldogs-story-antholog

How do you keep up with our new releases, requests for submissions and announcements? We’ve made a number of channels for interested people to keep up with what we’ve been doing. One of the best ways is to subscribe to this blog, where we will give regular, detailed updates about new and upcoming releases and well as guidelines for submissions.

Subscribe by adding our feed to your RSS reader: SUBSCRIBE

Another easy way to keep up with our announcements is to like our page on facebook where we regularly link to the blog and to events and posts our contributors are involved in.

Following @brennantaylor and @jrblackwell on twitter is a good way to keep up with Brennan Taylor and J.R. Blackwell, though there may be a lot more on those feeds than just information about Galileo Games.

If you think you missed a blog post with an announcement, or want to just check up on our current call for submissions checking our Newest Releases, Submissions and Conventions pages will always give you up to date information about what we’re doing.